CONTACT: Margot Dimond
PHONE: (713) 348-6775
E-MAIL: mdimond@rice.edu

DAVID W. LEEBRON NAMED 7TH PRESIDENT OF RICE UNIVERSITY
Dean of the Columbia University School of Law to take office July 1

HOUSTON--December 17, 2003 -- Described by colleagues as "an academic scholar of the highest order," a person of "unquestioned trustworthiness, integrity and honesty," and one who consults widely, listens carefully and then acts determinedly, David W. Leebron, the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law and Dean of the Columbia University School of Law, will become the 7th President of Rice University, effective July 1.

The chairman of the Rice Board of Trustees, E. William Barnett, made the announcement Wednesday, Dec. 17, after the board voted unanimously in favor of the appointment. Leebron also will become a tenured professor in political science. He will succeed Malcolm Gillis, who on Dec. 11, 2002, announced he would step down on June 30, 2004, after 11 years as president of Rice.

Leebron (pronounced LEE-bron), 48, will be introduced to the faculty and news media at a news conference at noon Friday (Dec. 19), in the McMurtry Auditorium of Duncan Hall.

The more people see of Leebron, Barnett said, the more they are going to like him.

"We sought an individual who reflected the maturity and academic stature of Rice at the end of its first century, and who had the character and substance to lead the university into its next century," the chairman said. "We are confident that David is that person.

"Everyone we talked to about him spoke with the greatest admiration: that he is 'highly regarded by faculty,' 'created within a law school a university that has the feel of a college,' 'combines being a great strategist with great executional skill,' and is 'a powerful intellect combined with great humanity.' David has a quiet strength that just keeps impressing you more."

Dean Leebron said that he was equally impressed with Rice and Houston.

"I feel so privileged to be given the opportunity to help lead an institution of Rice University's quality--a quality that spans the full range of human endeavor," he said. "Its outstanding faculty and student body reflect a true dedication to excellence. The combination of Rice's strengths is really extraordinary, including the humanities, music, engineering, natural and social sciences, architecture and business. It really is the epitome of the great research university combined with an emphasis on providing the very best undergraduate education.

"We are excited as well about moving to Houston, which offers a great lifestyle for families and at the same time has remarkable cultural institutions that could make even a New Yorker feel at home. And my wife and I are especially pleased that we will get to see Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets play on a regular basis. I will be sad to leave Columbia Law School, which has been so good to me in every possible way, but at the same time cannot imagine a more exciting opportunity than this."

Jim Crownover, Rice trustee and chairman of the 15-person search committee that unanimously recommended Leebron to the board, said the committee had developed a list of 20 criteria for evaluating candidates. These ranged from strength of character and intellect, to embodying the values of Rice, to academic leadership skills. The committee also started with one unofficial prohibition: "No lawyers."

"As we progressed, though, we realized two things," Crownover said. "One, that David is a scholar of extraordinary character, intellect and leadership. The reference that struck me most was that of a member of his faculty who said, 'He is a very powerful leader by virtue of the trust he has earned.' And, two, the category of law school deans has produced exceptionally fine presidents, such as Derek Bok at Harvard, Gerhard Casper at Stanford and, currently, Lee Bollinger at Columbia and Jeffrey Lehman at Cornell."

Crownover said that the four faculty members on the search committee led the support for Leebron.

"You will not meet anyone smarter than David Leebron," said Robert Curl, Nobel Prize-winning chemistry professor. "I am awestruck at his ability to think on his feet about a subject he knows far less about than we — Rice University."

A faculty member at Columbia since 1989, Leebron has been dean of its law school since July 1996. In that role, he has overseen administration of a school with 1,300 students, 70 full-time faculty, more than 200 staff members, an $80 million budget and construction projects of $120 million. Faculty members say that administrative responsiveness has increased.

Among other notable accomplishments, he has recruited 28 new faculty members, including what many observers say is the best junior faculty in law anywhere. The Law School has added to the faculty Ph.D.s in economics, history, philosophy and political science; and maintained a strong commitment to diversity among the faculty generally and in key leadership positions.

That commitment also is reflected in the student body, which is the most diverse among the country's top law schools. The Law School's student body has also become much more national under his leadership, and includes a greater percentage of international students than any of its peers. He has roughly doubled both annual giving and the school's endowment (from $166 million to almost $300 million), and has enhanced financial aid and financial support for students who enter public service.

"I would walk across hot burning coals for this guy," said Kristen Glen, dean of the City University of New York Law School.

Added Jeffrey Lehman, president of Cornell University: "David Leebron is a brilliant, inspiring academic leader; Rice is a world-class university. The match is absolutely perfect."

On the law faculty at Columbia since 1989, Leebron has taught and published in areas of corporate finance, international economic law, human rights, privacy and torts. He is the co-author of a textbook on human rights and has written most recently about problems in international trade law.

He earned his B.A. degree, summa cum laude, in history and science from Harvard College in 1976. He earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1979, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review, one of the nation's highest honors for a law student. He earlier won the school's Sears Prize, given to the two students receiving the highest grade averages in the first-year class.

From Harvard Law, Leebron went to Los Angeles to clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler at the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. After a semester as an acting professor teaching torts at UCLA School of Law, he entered private practice from 1981 to 1983 as an associate at the New York firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. From 1983 to 1989, he was a professor of law at New York University and director of NYU's International Legal Studies Program.

Born and reared in Philadelphia, Leebron was an Eagle Scout and began his lifelong interest in international affairs through a steady stream of exchange students — from Europe, Japan and Mexico — who stayed with his family, and with a half-year exchange in Germany himself. He speaks excellent German, which he has put to use as a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany in 1988, and as the Jean Monnet Visiting Professor at the Universitat Bielefeld, in Bielefeld, Germany, in 1992.

He is a member of the American Bar Association Standards Review Committee, the American Law Deans Association Board of Directors, and served on the American Association of Law Schools Nomination Committee. Additionally, Leebron is a member of the American Law Institute (ex officio), the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Society of International Law and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He is admitted to the bars of New York State, and, currently inactive, Hawaii and Pennsylvania. He is on the editorial board of Foundation Press, an educational publisher, and the board of directors of the IMAX Corporation.

Leebron is married to Y. Ping Sun, who was born in Shanghai and primarily raised by her grandparents in Tianjin during China's Cultural Revolution. In 1981, she made her first trip outside China to attend Princeton University, where she graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School in 1985. Ping graduated from Columbia Law School in 1988, the year before her future husband arrived there, and went to work for the New York law firm of White & Case. She currently works at the New York office of Sidley, Austin Brown & Wood LLP and is described as an extremely positive force with Columbia alumni, faculty and others. The couple has two children, Daniel, 7, and Merissa, 4.

Leebron was nominated to the Rice Board after an eight-month national search. The search committee included Crownover as chair; Barnett, ex officio; trustees Teveia Barnes, Steve Miller and Ber Pieper; faculty members Curl (chemistry), Robert Patten (English), James Pomerantz (psychology), and Robin Forman (mathematics); undergraduate Andrew Weber and graduate student Miles Scotcher; staff member Mary Cronin; alumni Karen Ostrum George, who also is a trustee, and Carl Isgren; and executive director Melissa Kean.

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Rice University is consistently ranked one of America’s best teaching and research universities. It is distinguished by its: size—2,850 undergraduates and 1,950 graduate students; selectivity—10 applicants for each place in the freshman class; resources—an undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio of 6-to-1, and the fifth largest endowment per student among American universities; residential college system, which builds communities that are both close-knit and diverse; and collaborative culture, which crosses disciplines, integrates teaching and research, and intermingles undergraduate and graduate work. Rice’s wooded campus is located in the nation’s fourth largest city and on America’s South Coast.